NATHANAEL OF CHINON:

French tosafist; flourished about 1220. He was a disciple of Isaac ben Samuel of Dampierre. After 1224 Nathanael was director of the yeshibah in Chinon and was in correspondence with the most famous and learned of his contemporaries, including Samuel ben Sheneor of Evreux, Isaac of Evreux (author of "Sha'are Dura"), Jehiel of Paris, and Isaac ben Todros. The last, in answer to Nathanael of Chinon's request for his opinion concerning a question at issue between himself and Jehiel, wrote that he dared not speak in the presence of the "pillars of the world." Nathanael wrote tosafot to the treatises Beẓah, Ḥullin, Berakot, and 'Erubin. In one of the tosafot he is referred to as "our rabbi Nathanael" (Ta'an. 3b; Ḳid. 4a, b; "Shiṭṭah Mekubbeẓet" on Nazir 46b, 53a, 56a, Dubno, 1800). Some of his ritual decisions also have been preserved.